Song of Splinters
by Marijn
Summary: Ninjas are meant to survive, and the ninja hidden in the Sound more so than any others. With this in mind, Tayuya survives past her time. [An AU set several hours after her defeat in the Valley of the End arc] [Very bloody, you have been warned]
1. Slippery When Wet

**Series and Character:** Naruto: Tayuya of the Sound Four.  
**Title:** Song of Splinters  
**Summary:** Ninjas are meant to survive, and the ninja hidden in the Sound more so than any others. With this in mind, Tayuya survives past her time. (An AU set several hours after her defeat in the Valley of the End arc)  
**Warnings:** Gore. So much of it. Self-mutilation of the practical kind.  
**Rating:** About a (15) in film terms for some swearing and a lot of blood.

The ability to move comes back slowly, shattered nerve by shattered nerve. The first thing she thinks is that she can't feel her legs. Actually, the first thing she thinks is a long stream of curses towards a non-specific but Orochimaru-like entity, followed by a small bout of agonised screaming containing nothing but painpainpain, but they don't count even a bit.The second is that whatever her body is doing doesn't matter, if she can't find her precious instrument. One slim silver shard slices her questing fingertips open, and a bent head joint rolls away from her bruised palm, but she cannot find anything more.

She breaks for another moment, or hour, or day. She's still alive afterwards, anyway. of frantic, desperate yells of anger and hate, as if the bitch who could control the air can still hear her. There's nothing else to do, no one else to abuse, and she's falling quickly into a blood-soaked haze. Tools, she thinks. She needs to call her golems out. They can lift, they can carry. They only respond to the sound of a flute.

The sound of bone snapping echoes around the forest, the first sound she has heard other than her own hoarse voice. She doesn't scream any more, but her curse seal is flush against her skin, trying to strengthen legs that aren't there to fill with its lukewarm, sickly chakra. It helps her to grip the shards of her own destroyed leg tighter, the bleached white slick and slimy with blood and other things that no one other than a ninja or a butcher should ever have to think about. Use everything, even the things so broken and disgusting that they should only be sent to a grave. It's sickeningly autobiographic.

The branch she's holding is straight, and already rotting from the inside, and the centre is gouged out easily, as shaky as her hands are becoming. She's not Kimimaro; she can't rip out her own fucking spine and make a perfectly formed weapon. She's Tayuya, flawed and scratched and feral, and her new flute is the same. She cuts each hole carefully, cutting her fingers an infinite number of times in the process. She hums a tune through the blood filling her mouth, plays the note, and whittles another hole. It's a rhythm. Hum, play, whittle. Turn your head that nauseating few inches away from the safety of stillness, and spit the blood away, where a small insect pokes disinterestedly at the mess.

It's not a flute, it's a pipe in an ugly semblance of a real instrument, but it is crimson with her blood and pumped full of her chakra, and it will do. She begins to play, fingers cracking with the small level of agility required, and nearly breaks off to yell in triumph when the telltale black marks snake – no, not snake. Spiral – away from her, twisting into the familiar patterns. She doesn't say the name of the technique, just watches as avidly as a starving dog as smoke and the smell of warm flesh fill her small space. An A minor, a B. Lilt the phrases, let it trail off, expectant. Her fingers have forgotten the pain, are just communicating in her old way, when the golems she had were smaller and more human, before everything became about Defence and Attack and Formations. She takes them through movement after movement, childish tunes causing them to cavort around her. Finally she finds the music again, the dirges that gave her confidence and power pouring from this warped cylinder.

The trees take all three golems to move, and it's terrifyingly close as to whether one can be moved to dart in and pull what is left of her mangled lower half out with the rest of her. Her seal has faded to the clammy heat of infection; her angry trembling has subsided to weakness. The shortest of the three has her in his arms, cradled in a way that she would protest if it didn't relieve the blinding pain in her back, and she begins to play again, trickles of blood causing pauses and whispers in the tune as they travel with her breath. As one, the towering figures shift, and are gone towards her tune's target.

Her song mimics the drifting leaves, the sudden autumnal flurry of strength. Konoha, the land of the shadow-boy; the optimist. Where they might listen for a second before sticking a knife into what's left of her neck.

She can only think one last thing: That whatever they're going to do, the most violent and freakish ninja they have wouldn't hold a candle to any one of the eager servants a vengeful master could give her to. Blood-soaked, half-conscious, a realist, she hears the stirrings of life, and follows them.


	2. Stop

**Chapter****Title:** Stop

**Summary:** Dying slowly, dreaming of past and possibility, Tayuya arrives at the village hidden in the leaves.

**Warnings:** Gore; violence; mention of torture.

**Rating:** (15)

The forest is passing quickly, landmarks flashing by as fast as she can recognise them. Fever is settling in, and she has no idea what she's going to do when she gets to the Leaf village. Absolutely no fucking idea. She can remember her drills, her briefing sessions. She knows how screwed she is, how screwed she was the moment she chose this destination.

"_If you encounter the following ninja," Kabuto told them, "You are not to engage, unless the situation is drastically in your favour." Names scrolled by, old photos with them. Pages of statistics, graphs. Tayuya knew that no one in the room was going to remember all of the faces. _

_The screen flickered through the A's, the E's, through a whole minute of Hyuuga names. There was a rustle of muttering from the seated crowd as some of the more famous names appeared. One ninja to her left muttered a curse at a 'Morino, Ibiki' who apparently specialised in Interrogation, and she eyed the scars across what was visible of his face with interest. On the same page a woman's photo smiled out at the room, smile too wide to be true. Murmuring filled the room at the statistics. 'Teacher', 'Known abilities'; Orochimaru could be seen smirking as the entire room tried not to look at him. Tayuya did not bother, only resolved that if she ever met this Anko, she was going to find out everything she could about why someone with the Heaven Seal could ignore that power._

_A bored-looking kid stared out from the screen as they reached the Ns, and she frowned at the face. She knew that look, had made it twitch into fear, horror, pain. Another boy stood out, this one blond and grinning, who had tricked her. No. That hadn't happened yet._

_One leg twitched, and she looked down sharply. Blood poured from shattered bones and torn skin; and she remembered that it was the other girl who did that, not the boy listed as 'Nara, Shikamaru'. Trees and leaves streamed through the screen, through the scarred faces and grim smiles of the enemy, until leaves and images became a single, blurring impression. The wind howled around her, making her want to scream defiance._

_Her fingers twitched in a ghostly performance of the command melodies, somehow reassuring her. As the images became incomprehensible, Tayuya passed out. In her golem's arms, her flute stayed at her lips, her jagged breaths still ghosting into music._

There are panicked shouts in the distance.

The golems are leaping over buildings and scattering citizens with single-minded obedience, and her muddled curse is stifled against her instrument at a particularly harsh landing. Her aching fingers switch to another pattern, to the minor chords. Her breath comes softly, wetly, the music muffled. If she's identified as the summoner, it's all over. The spirits have stopped, bandaged and pinned faces turning to the ninja now surrounding them. In unison, anticipating the change in melody, they disgorge their chakra.

One slim civilian is devoured before she can think to change the targets. Fuck, that'll endear her to the authorities. What a stupid idea, mixing civilians in with a military area.

As her mind shifts and wanders, her minions waver. Tiles crack and crumble as they stagger into the nearest building.

In the blink of an eye, one golem is down, blasted from five sides with fire and blade. ANBU. There are fucking special ops on the rooftops.

The chakra snake screams defiance where the body cannot, and all but consumes one black-robed ninja before fading.

Tayuya can feel that stolen chakra coursing through her, feeding her reserves. Her seal pulses, sickly sweet against her back, telling her to keep fighting, to keep killing. The ANBU's finely-honed chakra, the civilian's mediocre potential, these steady her. Intelligent, practical. She is suddenly able to fight against the call of the seal.

The notes cease.

She screams as her protector drops her onto the cool pavement, its muscles going completely lax. Immediately, both remaining summons are destroyed, torn apart by swords and chakra until she can't see shit for the smoke.

Neither fought back and this seems to have confused the ANBU.

Whilst they step carefully closer, she slides the flute into what's left of her smock. If they weren't attacking _because_ she was there, she has one chance to lower their suspicion.

"You, kid," one says, just as she convulses, hacking up blood and fuck knows what else onto his sandals. Her head cracks against the ground as she falls back, and she can hear another agent hiss a curse even as she tries to see past the bursts of light in her eyelids. "Get her to the hospital," a female voice, sharp and loud, commands, "she can't do shit like this. Code orange, level three."

Someone picks her up, and nearly drops her again as she automatically flails against the touch. "Oh, for-" the woman mutters, and Tayuya stifles a shout as she feels numerous scaly bodies, sinuous and dry, curl around her. The arms already holding her retreat completely, and then she's held aloft by what can only be fucking _snakes_, spread along her body like some kind of disgusting, hissing stretcher.

She lets out a whimper as they settle more firmly into place, tongues flickering across clammy skin, and tries to quell the sudden flood of images rushing up towards her. _Dark rooms, a pale smile, and yellow eyes. Obedience, loyalty, what is expected. Constriction and poisons. She can name every single fucking one by the end. _She can feel her seal throbbing eagerly, encouraging her to fear, to hate, and she barely keeps it down. The mark cannot be discovered.

One's head settles under her chin, and she loses it. The seal screams victory, taking over her skin even as she arches against the power, crying out as bone and open flesh rasp against scales suddenly tightening around her. She hears the name snarled, '_Orochimaru',_ like a vile curse, and then fangs sink into her throat, cool liquid forcing its way into her bloodstream, dominating and defeating the weakened seal.

"Get Tsunade," Anko Mitarashi snaps. (Tayuya knows now who it is, that smiling woman to whom Orochimaru taught his techniques) "Tell her we've got a girl with a seal. Meet me in third ward." ANBU are surrounding them, questioning, and watching as a broken body is restrained by a nest of serpents. She can hear blood splattering the floor and the angry hiss of a snake near her shattered knees.

Just her fucking luck, she thinks bitterly as her muscles spasm helplessly against the work of the paralytic venom. The one thing that she hates – that Orochimaru has _made_ them all hate – and they're everywhere. One curls around her neck, tangling itself in her matted hair. Another is getting close – too close – to finding her flute inside her tattered tunic. She looks around, or tries to, and curses clot with the blood in her throat as her eyelids are gently but firmly closed. The seal's power collapses, and she feels warm hands and coarse net against her side before she loses consciousness again.


End file.
